"登月隊長"解密Google X

There are few people more qualified to talk about shaping the future than Google’s Astro Teller. His official title the oh-so-Googley “Captain of Moonshots.” His day job is running Google X, which the company calls its “moonshot factory.” It’s where Google GOOG -0.30% is developing self-driving cars, Glass (its glasses-like wearable computer), Loon (a project to deliver Internet access worldwide through high-altitude balloons), Makani (an effort to generate energy through high-flying wind turbines), and ingestible nanoparticles that would detect cancer and other diseases. Teller works closely with CEO Larry Page, which Fortune named 2014 businessperson of the year, and Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder who oversees X and other special projects. He recently spoke with Fortune about his lab’s approach to breakthrough innovation.

說到塑造未來，阿斯特羅o泰勒鮮有對手。他的正式頭銜是谷歌 “登月隊長”——一個頗具谷歌風範的稱謂；他的日常工作是負責Google X實驗室的運營，谷歌將其稱爲“登月工廠”。在這裏，谷歌正在開發無人駕駛汽車、谷歌眼鏡、Loon項目（通過高空氣球提供上網服務）、Makani項目（通過高空風輪機發電）以及用於檢測癌症和其他疾病的納米膠囊。在工作上和泰勒密切配合的有谷歌首席執行官拉里o佩奇（《財富》雜誌2014年年度商人），以及谷歌聯合創始人、管理着Google X和其他一些專業項目的謝爾蓋o布林。最近，泰勒接受了《財富》雜誌的採訪，介紹了Google X如何獲取突破性創新。

Fortune: How do moon shots come together at Google X?

《財富》：Google X的“登月”項目是怎麼來的？

Well, with the caveat that it’s not simple, I think that there are some principles, or some ways of seeing, at least, things that don’t work.

事先聲明一下，這並不簡單，但我覺得在看待那些難以企及的事情時我們至少有幾條原則。

You have to have three things in order for it to conceptually be a moon shot. That doesn’t mean we’ll necessarily do it, but it means necessarily we won’t do it if it doesn’t have these three things.

要從概念上成爲“登月”項目，得具備三個要素。這並不是說有了這三個要素我們就一定會去做這件事，它的意思是如果沒有這三個要素我們就一定不會去做。

The first one is that it’s a huge problem. That sounds pretty obvious, but it’s incredibly not obvious in fact.

首先，它得是一個重大問題。這看上去是顯而易見的事情，但實際上這一概念模糊的令人難以置信。

Then the second thing is that there has to be some kind of radical proposed solution. It should be a science fiction-sounding product or service. Obviously whether it really sounds like it comes out of [Isaac] Asimov isn’t important. What’s important is that we be not treading the same ground that other people have tread before because thinking that we’re going to be smarter or better resourced or work harder than people who’ve come before us is just not a good bet.

其次，得有人提出某種激進的解決方案。這種產品或服務聽起來得像是科幻小說裏的東西。顯然，它聽起來是否真的像來自艾薩克o阿西莫夫的科幻小說並不重要。重要的是，我們不能步別人的後塵，因爲覺得自己比以前那些人聰明，擁有更好的資源，或者付出更多努力的想法一點也不靠譜。

Then the third one is some reason to believe that this isn’t just pie in the sky. We would call this breakthrough science or tech.

最後，我們有理由相信它不是空中樓閣。我們將其稱爲突破性科學或技術。

This could be something we’ve discovered. It could be something someone else has discovered. It could be something that has worked in one domain but has never been transplanted to this other domain. There are lots of different ways of ending up having an “Aha!” moment where you believe that something looks nearly impossible might not be impossible.

這種科技可能來自於谷歌，也可能來自於他人。它可能已經在某個領域發揮了作用，但從未移植到其他領域。在很多情況下，我們最終都會恍然大悟，從而意識到這件看起來近乎不可能的事也許並非不可能。

These three things don’t happen all at once, right?

這三個要素不會一下子都出現，對吧？

That’s right. So in some cases one of these is easy and the others are hard. Sometimes we will think we have a bead on two or even three of these things, but after awhile one of them will fall away.

是這樣。因此，在某些情況下找到其中一個要素比較容易，而找到另外兩個比較困難。有時候我們覺得已經找到了其中兩個，甚至三個要素都已具備，但一段時間後，其中一個就會消失。

Take Loon [the Google X project to deliver Internet connectivity worldwide through high-altitude balloons], for example. This was super obvious. There are 5 billion people in the world who don’t have Internet connections, and there’s very little that would cause the world to be more at peace, more prosperous than getting the other 5 billion people on the planet connected.

以Loon項目[通過高空氣球在全球範圍內提供網絡連接]爲例，這三個要素非常明顯。全球有50億人上不了網。就促進世界和平、繁榮而言，還有什麼事業能夠與爲50億人提供上網渠道相比呢？

Very generally, doing this from balloons rather than from satellites sort of has the form of a radical solution.

非常籠統地講，用氣球而不是衛星來實現這個目標可以算是一種激進的解決方案。

And so we went through a process for almost a year where the mantra was not “This is going to work” but “This is not going to work. How can we discover why this won’t work as fast as possible so that we can discard this and move on to something else?” And it was only having tried rigorously for a year and having failed to fail many times in a row that we got to the point where we were starting to take this project really seriously.

因此，在近一年的時間中，我們的工作並不是證明“這行得通”，而是證明“這行不通，以及我們怎樣才能儘快發現爲什麼它行不通？這樣就可以放棄它，然後轉向別的項目。”我們努力嘗試了一年，連續失敗了很多次，然後纔開始認真對待這個項目。

You have a rapid-eval team. Can you talk a little bit about how it works?

你有一個快速評估團隊。能介紹一下它是如何運作的嗎？

There are two ends of a continuum [for tackling moon shots]. On one end of the continuum—you could just call this the “savant” model—you pick a small number of things to do, and you’re determined to do them from the beginning, and you’d better be right because you decided you’re going to do them. On the other end of the spectrum—you could think of this as the “funnel” perspective—at the beginning you have a huge number of things that you’re not taking very seriously and that you’re hoping to throw out with relatively little work. And the farther you get into the funnel, the more work it may take to throw out something.

[就處理“登月”項目來說，]這就像一個統一體的兩端。你可以把其中一端稱爲“專家”模式。它的做法是挑幾件事來做，而且從一開始就決心一干到底。你得做出正確的選擇，因爲你已經下定了決心。對於另一端，你可以把它想象成一個“漏斗”。在漏斗頂部有大量的項目，我們並不打算去特別認真地對待，而且我們也希望在排除這些項目時投入較少的精力；然而，越接近漏斗底部，排除就越費力。

So this is a team of maybe eight or so polymaths who are exceptionally bright over a broad range. They tend to be makers, so they are not uncomfortable prototyping. They’re run by a guy named Rich DeVaul. They act in a fairly chamber music-like way, where for each thing that someone is working on, everyone else will just pitch in.

這個團隊大約有八個人，他們大都博學多才，而且在衆多領域都頗有建樹。他們更願意動手參與，因此製作原始模型對他們來說不是什麼難事。該團隊的負責人是裏奇o德沃爾。他們的工作方式類似於室內合奏——當有人在從事某一項目時，其他人都會爲其提供一臂之力。

And then Rich DeVaul also runs the Design Kitchen for us, which is sort of a tech shop on steroids. It’s a rapid prototyping facility, and it makes sense that these two things are together.

裏奇o德沃爾還負責我們的Design Kitchen項目，這是個加強版的技術工作室。它能迅速製作出原始模型，因此讓裏奇同時掌管Design Kitchen和Google X是合情合理的。

With Larry Page, you’ve got your savant, too.

有了拉里o佩奇，你也就有了自己的專家。

Well, we have both, right? We are very fortunate to be in a situation where two of the planet’s recognized savants, Larry and Sergey, are here. There are times when they say, “Trust me on this one.” And that does skip parts of the funnel process. But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t otherwise driving the funnel process.

我們有兩位專家，不是嗎？我們非常幸運，作爲這個星球上公認的專家，拉里和謝爾蓋都在這兒。有時候他們會說：“在這個問題上要相信我。”而這確實能幫我們省略一部分“漏斗”工作。但這並不意味在其他時候我們不開展這項工作。

Is there a way to institutionalize or scale this process? How far can it scale?

有辦法讓這項工作成爲制度或者擴大規模嗎？它的規模能有多大？

We clearly have scaled in the sense that there’s a lot more going on here than there was two years ago. I do believe that making a factory for innovation, a moon-shot factory, is possible. I’m not saying that we’ve done a perfect job here so far, but I do think that that’s possible.

很明顯，我們已經擴大了規模，因爲和兩年前相比，現在我們這裏進行的項目要多得多。我確實相信，建立一個創新工廠，也就是“登月”工廠，是可行的。這並不是說到現在爲止我們的工作已趨於完美，但我真的認爲它是可行的。（財富中文網）